I wrote once, years ago now, about an article in America Magazine called “A Fiery Gift,” in which the author argued that there are important spiritual insights to be gained from a natural birthing experience. Essentially, she claimed (and I agree) that the pattern of birthing occurs often is our spiritual lives, and having the experience of physically birthing a child gives us a context against which to compare the movements we make toward growth in our souls.
Category Archives: Credo
Are we awake?
I fear it may be time for this blog to head off in a different direction. This should be a good thing, since it might encourage me to get back to writing. We’ll see.
My eyes are being opened and my heart is being broken, and I need space to work through some of this. I’m hoping this space will fill some part of this need.
Craig and I have been participating in a group through church called Engaging Spirituality. The program seeks to deepen participants’ faith through a group process focused on prayer and social justice.It has been challenging, to say the leastparents , and we are discovering just how much growing we still have to do.
Craig’s parents have been kind enough to watch the girls through all these meetings. As I was driving to their house to drop the little ones off, I witnessed this scene.
We were at a red light, waiting to make a left turn. To the side of the oncoming traffic, also stopped for the light, a man was walking up and down with a sign. I couldn’t read the sign, since his back was to me, but I’ve seen this man, and his friend who was sitting on the bus bench, before, so I know the sign said something to the effect of, “hungry”, “please help”, “anything helps”, etc. You know the signs as well as I do.
In the far lane from the man, a police car was stopped for the light. I noticed the blue lights flashing, and the officer flinging his door open and stepping quickly out of the car. He called to the man with the sign, and waved him toward him. Between the two rows of cars, there was a conversation which I couldn’t see much of because of the cars between me and the two men.
I don’t know what was said. Maybe the officer warned the other man to be careful in the traffic. But I doubt it. The officer looked irate. There was violence in his movement. When they were done talking, the man slunk over to the bench, sign gone or put away. The officer stormed back to his car, ripped the door open, and got back in.
Our light changed.
The whole scene might have taken a minute. I was shaken by what I witnessed. Craig checked when we got home – there is no law against pan-handling which applies to that part of the city. What could the officer have said to this man? Maybe he knows him well, has picked him up in the past for something. I don’t know. But what I saw, what my heart and my gut saw, was ugly.
These men are already down. What good does it do for this officer to get out and further embarass and belittle them in the middle of stopped traffic? There was no kindness or concern for the plight of fellow human being visible in the officer’s body language. There wasn’t even pity. There was contempt, self-righteousness, anger, disgust, and, as I realized laying awake in bed tonight, violence. I do not feel safer for the action this officer took. I feel embarassed. My initial thoughts were, “How could we?” and “God help us!” Where is our compassion as a society? Why do we insist on alienating and hurting our most vunerable?
And I drove away.
go fish!
The scene: Lucy andSamantha sittiginthenew prayer space with fans of saint cards in hand.
Lucy: “Do you have a Saint Rose?”
Samantha: “Go fish!”
Holy Water
Lucy has a theory. She thinks that all we need to do to make the world a better place starts with a little Holy Water. You take some of this “magical” stuff in a cup, and go find a bad person. You have two weeks to do this, as she assured us this evening that the water stays good for two weeks. When you find the bad person, you have them drink the Holy Water. Then they won’t want to be bad any more.
I want to live in her world.
January 25, 2010 – Church and State
In the space of an hour tonight, the girls’ imaginative play included two hilarious and touching games. The first was “Mass”, complete with Goldfish and water intincture for communion, the girls taking turns as priest, and a fantastic version of “Hosanna to Jesus the King” of Lucy’s own creation.
When that was finished, Lucy announced that we were going to do what the man on the computer was doing (Craig was watching the State of the Union): she would stand up and talk, and we would all clap. The speech sounded roughly like this: “Blah, goobdy-glah, ookie jimbas.” It was quite hilarious.
Can I ask a favor?
Somebody please disagree with me if this is not you experience.
This is my request. Please, please, do not tell me that “the only thing that matters is a healthy mom and a healthy baby.” I’m not saying I don’t want a healthy baby, or that I would rather bleed to death, or that I don’t appreciate that I live in a place where I have the opportunity (not to mention the medical insurance) to allow us to catch a placenta previa and do something “safe” about it. But what I hear, although I know it is not what it intended, which is why I try not to get upset about it, is, “don’t get so worked up about your birth. Your experience of it doesn’t matter. Stop being upset.”
Counting down the minutes
I have to say I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by all the notes we’ve gotten saying that we are in people’s prayers. Thank you all so much!! No matter how things end up going, it has been a great blessing for me to know how many people care about me and our family.
The ultra sound appointment is set for 2:40 this afternoon, then it’s straight to the OB’s office to discuss where we stand, and then if there is time, we’re meeting with the midwife while we’re uptown. And then I’m hoping for a celebratory dinner somewhere… So I’ll update as soon as I can, but it probably won’t be until this evening.
The Trip, Part 1: Hospitality
I’m pretty sure this will take several days to explain, in part since my writing time is now divided by a number of thank-you notes which must be written with all haste.
Which seems like as good a place as any to start. We were very, very blessed by the generosity of friends and strangers on our trip to Fargo, ND, this past week. We were gone from Tuesday morning to the following Tuesday night, and only spent one of those nights away in a hotel. So pending the thank-you notes, here are the people to whom we owe our very awesome, very long trip.
Pockets of Freedom
I finally, after months, decided to read a blog of two today. This article was first, and it came at just the right time.
I never thought of God like that…
Lucy: “If God was made of glass, and had a thing in his back so you could wind Him up, like a wind-up bunny, then he could go up to the sky and come back down from the sky.”
And later in the same car ride…
Craig: “Have you ever tried to talk to Jesus?”
Lucy: “No, I’m too shy of him.”
